


Storytime

by Seascribe



Category: The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: Babies, Kidfic, Language, M/M, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-24
Updated: 2012-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-30 02:01:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/326530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seascribe/pseuds/Seascribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"After Conn has fallen asleep, sometimes Esca will tell Marcus what the stories were, but when he speaks them in Latin, somehow the life is gone from them. It is not storytelling any more, merely reporting, like an officer's daily log."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Storytime

**Author's Note:**

> For Lallyloo. Set in the same 'verse as Leaving Home.

In the evenings, no matter how long the day has been, Esca sits with Conn by the fire, telling him stories in British. The boy is too young yet to understand, but he still watches his father's face raptly, drinking in every word and gesture. Marcus listens too, catching a word here or there that he knows, _thanks, friend, hound,_ but for the most part he is as lost to the meaning of the story as their wide-eyed little son.

Sometimes Esca's stories are slow, murmuring tales that seem to wind on for hours, the words dripping from his lips like honey, until Marcus and Conn are both nodding off to sleep. Other times, the stories are quick and silly, and Esca makes all manner of ridiculous faces that have Conn giggling and clapping his hands.

After Conn has fallen asleep, sometimes Esca will tell Marcus what the stories were, but when he speaks them in Latin, somehow the life is gone from them. It is not storytelling any more, merely reporting, like an officer's daily log. So Marcus understands why Esca's stories are always in British, for surely that is how he learned them at his father's knee, as his father and father's father had done, as it should be. But Esca refuses to speak anything but British to their son, and that puzzles Marcus, for Esca has never seemed to begrudge Marcus' speaking Latin to both of them.

It is no great thing--Marcus doubts that such a young child understands that the sounds of British and Latin are any different--but he cannot stop wondering, and it is not long until wondering turns into worrying that perhaps it means something that he should understand, and he decides it is better simply to ask.

When he does, it is as Esca has just finished with that evening's story, and Conn is very nearly asleep, drooling onto his blanket. "I would keep some part of him back from Rome," Esca says, going to settle Conn in his cradle. "It might not matter so much here, while he is small, but when he runs with the other boys, they will be Romans and it is Latin they will be speaking, even the ones who are native born."

Marcus tries not to frown, but he must do a bad job of it because Esca holds up his hands in a peaceable gesture. "I do not say it is a bad way to raise a child, or that he should not speak Latin. Only that it is important to me that he comes up knowing the language of my father's fathers and that he understands that there are more ways in this world than just that of Rome."

If things were otherwise, if their neat little villa were a wattle-and-daub roundhouse and it was Esca's language that their neighbours spoke, with not a word of Latin, then yes, Marcus thinks, he would do the same. And as he imagines it, he is suddenly struck with guilt for never realising that, though Esca has chosen to be here, it must be lonely to have no one with whom to share his language, save for an infant who has only just begun to recognise his own name and cannot answer back. After all they have been through, after his own time as a slave among the Epidaii, Marcus has no excuse for not understanding.

"I think it is past time that I should have learned your tongue," Marcus says, a little afraid of being rebuffed. "I would like to understand your stories."

The warm smile that Esca favours him with tells Marcus that he has done right. "That would be a fine thing. But I hope that does not mean you will stop teaching him the songs and stories of your people. It is in my heart that those are good for him to know."

"I fear I have not your skill at storytelling," Marcus begins, but in the other room, Conn makes a sleepy noise that quickly builds into a thin, unhappy wailing, and Marcus goes automatically to soothe him. "And I thought we had you sleeping through the night at last, little man," he says, lifting Conn up and offering him the lumpy toy dog that he had cobbled together out of bright scraps of cloth.

"Is it teeth coming in already?" Esca says, as Conn stuffs the dog's head into his mouth and gnaws at it with a distinctly grumpy air. He turns his face against Marcus' chest and sulks when Esca tries to feel at his gums. "He'll want something better than his dog to help cut them."

"Tomorrow," Marcus says. "Let's see if we can't get you back to sleep now. Perhaps Esca will tell you another story, eh?"

But Esca smiles and says, "I think it is your turn for tonight." So Marcus settles into the big chair by the fire, and tells Conn a half-remembered story about a sculptor who made a woman out of ivory, so beautiful that he fell in love with her and begged the goddess Venus to give her life. His old tutor would surely be in fits at the spurious details he invents as he goes along, but Conn will never know the difference, and by the end of it, he has fallen fast asleep again.

"You are none so bad at storytelling after all," Esca says with a grin. "Once you have learnt a little British, you will almost be fit for civilised company."

Retaliation isn't worth the risk of waking the baby. So Marcus promises to save it for later, and tips his head back to meet Esca's kiss.

FIN


End file.
